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Senator Orrin Hatch has some strong words during Justice Thomas’ confirmation hearings. There are many similarities between what happened to Justice Thomas and what is now happening to Judge Kavanaugh. His words are almost perfectly applicable to the sideshow that Judge Kavanaugh’s hearing confirmation he become.

I have included the scathing rebuke from Justice Thomas on how he feels he was being treated during his trial confirmation hearing.

The Midterm Election Day is Tuesday, November 6, 2018

The midterm election is fast approaching. Voting is a right that many Americans take for granted because they do not think politics has any effect on them. Or, maybe, they just do no care. But they should, and so should you. Over a billion people around the world live under a government in which they have no say in. In places like Iraq, under the threat of attack by recently (mostly) defeated ISIS, 8 million voters (44.5% of eligible) turned out to have a say in how their lives are run. In the 2016 General Election 55.7% of American voters turned out; we were not under threat of terroristic activity. The United States is better than this. We are better than only having a 25% higher turnout than Iraq.

What is at stake?

For the last (almost) two years the left has been apoplectic. It is funny to watch the left’s hyperbolic response to anything Trump. But, their “righteous” indignation is going to drive them to the voting booth in record numbers.

If you would vote against a Democrat, but you do not vote, you help elect Democrats. It is as simple as that.

The saying “complacency kills” is true when it comes to the midterms; no, I am not accusing the democrats of being responsible for killing people if they are elected. They, however, will kill anything good that the Trump Administration has done for the country. They will try and make bigger and more expensive government a thing.

Currently serving Democrats are not being shy about, should they take control of congress after the midterm election, what their agenda will be. They will turn the House and Senate into a kangaroo court against the President, and the right more generally. They will work to undermine the President at every turn.

This list is by no means all inclusive of what the Democrats want to do if they win.

Reach out to your friends and family that may be undecided, get registered, and help others get registered. If you do meet an undecided voter, do not appeal to their emotions. Instead, use facts and reason to convince them to vote republican. Talk to them about the economy and what may happen if things are abruptly reversed. Be smart and be respectful when discussing the issues.

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Beto O’Rourke is running against Ted Cruz for United States Senator from Texas. Beto is not good for Texas or for the United States as a whole. He has recently shown that he, just like many Democrats, does not understand basic economics, is a hypocrite, and does not put the concerns of his prospective constituents first.

Full disclosure; I voted for Senator Cruz in 2012 and would very happily do it again if I still lived in Texas.

Economics

Something that really bothers me is when elected officials, or candidates, make statements on policy using the party line talking points. Usually, these talking points are beret of facts, context, or both. In an interview with a Houston based NBC affiliate, KPRC, Rep. O’Rourke made the following statement. It is astonishing how far removed from reality this statement is, especially when put into context.

First, tax cuts do not “cost” money. Tax cuts have a dollar amount attached to them to show the scope of the cuts; single payer healthcare has an actual “cost” because it increases spending. As stated in the previously linked article:

Taxes are revenue for the government collected involuntarily from its citizens. Therefore, a cut in taxes simply means less non-consensual money is taken from taxpayers. It is not money changing hands from the government to citizens. Indeed, it is money not changing hands. A tax cut is lowering the rate of taxation…

It is likely that he knows talking about the “cost” is misleading. He is betting that the majority of people watching his interview do not fully understand economics and taxation. I do not fully understand them either, but I know he is being dishonest. His talk about the cost flows right into his second misleading statement.

Rep. O’Rourke says that the tax cuts will disproportionately flow to the wealthiest in the country. He is right, because that is how tax cuts work. Consider the following information from the Tax Foundation regarding 2015 tax information, source:

The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.0 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.4 percent).

The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 27.1 percent individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.6 percent).

In 2015, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.2 percent of all individual income taxes while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.8 percent.

The top 25% of income earners, those earning above $79,655, paid 86.6, or $1.25 trillion of the total income taxes collected. *

The second 25% paid $153 billion in total income taxes. The bottom 50% paid only $41 billion in total taxes. *

*Data is in table 1

While O’Rourke is correct in his statement that the wealthy will get the most benefit from the tax cuts, it is highly misleading to stop there. The press eviscerated Mitt Romney during the 2012 election cycle when he claimed that “47% of Americans pay no income tax.” As rated here, his statement was true. For O’Rourke to make the claim that the wealthy will disproportionately benefit from the tax cut completely ignores the reality of federal taxation. A person can only benefit from a tax cut when they pay taxes. Additionally, we have progressive taxes, which makes it completely uncontroversial that wealthy Americans will get a comparatively larger tax cut than someone making significantly less money, because they pay significantly more in taxes.

He briefly mentions income inequality as if the rich stole from the poor to get their wealth and create the inequality. Like the previous statements, this is only relevant if you are trying to mislead your supporters and guide them down a path of victim mentality. Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person on earth, did not achieve his wealth by stealing from others. He got it by creating one of the most powerful capitalistic forces the world has ever seen. Amazon is such a commercial powerhouse that the Chairman of the Fed credits Amazon with helping to keep inflation rates low. Bezos got his wealth by providing a service to tens of millions of Americans, by enabling tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of merchants to expand their online businesses, and by powering a majority of the websites and services we enjoy; for context, Netflix is an AWS customer, source.

I do not understand the vilification of the wealthy for political gain. The people arguing the wealthy are greedy for not wanting to be taxed heavily are the very people wanting to take more of someone else’s money. Taxation is not compassion, it is legalized theft and those that want more of people’s money are as greedy as the ones they chastise for not wanting more taxes.

O’Rourke continues to vilify corporate America by attempting to paint them as greedy thieves because they have made a lot of money and retained the savings. It is relevant to note that Apple, the first company valued at $1 trillion dollars, regularly increases their stock dividends, is buying back their stock at a record pace (which helps the investor), and continues to be technological paradigm shifter. They also have $243.7 billion cash on hand. His criticisms are stupid for the same reasons as in the above paragraph.

Rep. O’Rourke then latches on to the inhumanity of giving tax cuts instead of giving raises to teachers. Good teachers are not paid enough for their time, commitment, and the importance of their work. Regardless of personal beliefs on the public school system, it is the current system in place and the most widely utilized educational system. Teachers compensation should not be a partisan talking point. It should be something that a consensus form easily about. Rep. O’Rourke may have forgotten that all spending bills originate in the House; according to GovTrack he has not proposed or sponsored any legislation on teacher pay, unless there are provisions I am unaware of in the legislation sponsored or proposed by him. Furthermore, as he bemoans the tax cuts on behalf of teachers, he is forgetting that the tax cuts are, in essence, a pay raise for these teachers. If elected though, he would likely vote to repeal the tax cuts; effectively cutting the paycheck of millions of Americans, including the teachers he feigns concern for.

His criticism of the tax cuts, and corporate America, is a red herring designed to sow divisions between the wealthy and the not so wealthy.

Beto, The Hypocrite

As noted in the above video, O’Rourke thinks that budget deficits are bad.

Actually, that is not totally true. O’Rourke believes that a single payer healthcare system is the future of healthcare in America, source. In one breath he bemoans the $800 billion deficit this year, and in another talks about racking up roughly $30 trillion in additional federal spending for a single payer system. A Medicare for All system would take that $800 billion deficit and and triple it, if not more. I wrote a post on Medicare for All, here, and there is a great article here that talks about the difficulties and cost of transitioning to a single payer system. It seems that O’Rourke likes deficits, massive government, and gargantuan tax increases if they enable leftist policy. Below is a graphic documenting the necessary tax increases to fund the single payer system he have shown support for.

Beto (maybe) Put “Dreamers” First

Rep. O’Rourke talked about how the Houston area, devastated by Hurricane Harvey one year ago, is still in need of help to recover from the record devastation. He, and Cruz, have voted yes on measures to secure something like $90 billion in funds to help with recovery in the area, which is very good.

Recently the Cruz campaign released an ad attacking O’Rourke for voting against a measure to secure various tax breaks for victims of Hurricane Harvey, and other storms. O’Rourke says that he voted no because the tax breaks were not generous enough to the victims of the 2017 hurricane season compared with breaks previously granted to storm victims. I do not know the accuracy of this claim, and I am also not an expert by any definition on the processes and procedures of the House of Representatives; but according to the record of actions for this bill, Rep. O’Rourke did nothing to improve the provisions of the bill while it was up for debate [If I am wrong please correct me]. Additionally, he initially voted against another disaster relief bill because he, among other democrats, wanted to attach provisions to DACA recipients, as noted below; source.

O’Rourke did support four other bills that provided disaster relief for Harvey victims, three of which became law.

O’Rourke voted “no” on an earlier version of one of the bills containing Harvey aid that was passed to avert a government shutdown. Many Democrats opposed that bill because it did not address the status of young immigrants facing deportation after President Donald Trump scrapped the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Due to his inaction on proposing changes to the bill, and his previously DACA motivated “no” vote, its hard to say that he always puts his constituents best interests first. At the end of this Ted Cruz ad there are state (or local) officials praising Sen. Cruz for his tireless work for Texas’ recovery.

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The shooting in Jacksonville is another tragedy that may have happened because well-intentioned people disarmed any potential sheepdog that may have been in attendance. According to the venue’s website, the location is a gun free zone (bottom of page); well, it was supposed to be one. Gun free zones, along with most “common sense gun laws,” only have an effect on the law-abiding citizen; they understand what is at stake if they carry in gun free zones. This person does not want to lose their right to bear arms and they face a tough choice; they either break the rules and hope for the best, forgo entering the building, or they will disarm and enter.

It should be the responsibility of businesses and venues that are gun free zones to adequately ensure the safety of their patrons, or else they should be fully responsible for tragedies like the shooting in Florida. Additionally, gun owners in the United States should speak loudly with their wallets. Find businesses that do not seek to disarm you, and publicly, but peacefully, call out those that do. Gun owners make up enough of the population that change can happen. There is zero sense in disarming anyone that is lawfully permitted to own and carry a firearm and we should not tolerate it.

A popular talking point for the gun control advocates is that, more guns = more crime, death, and doom. A popular counterpoint from gun rights advocates is, more guns = less crime, death, and doom. There are very easy to understand reasons as to why gun shows and NRA events do not suffer from mass shootings. Gun free zones, on the other hand, are the choice of criminals for equally obvious reasons. There may be other answers than what I will give, but a big difference is that, at gun shows and NRA events, there are large numbers of armed individuals. Someone would have to be exceedingly stupider than the average criminal to attempt an attack on one of these venues.

Also, if fewer guns = less crime, it should follow that a place like Chicago would be a bastion of safety and nonexistent gun violence. Problem is that Chicago is almost the opposite in reality. Exhibit 1and 2.

Guns Are Not the Problem

I am fortunate that the gun laws in Colorado are, by and large, friendly to the individual. There is strong state preemption, no-permit-required open carry, and strong concealed carry rights legislation on the books.

Though there have been a handful of infamous mass shootings here, the total number of intentional deaths by firearm in 2016 was 136, out of 202 total (67%). Chicago* on the other hand saw 762 murders, of which approximately 91% were gun related; 762 X .91 = 693. That’s over 5 years worth of statewide gun murders in Colorado taking place, in one city that has strict gun laws, in one year.

*I pick on Chicago because they are notorious for strict gun laws and, recently, high murder numbers. Other places like Detroit, Baltimore, and St. Louis have a higher per capita murder rate, but 700+ murders in one year is just a staggeringly high number.

Colorado is about 207% larger in population than Chicago; 2.705 million in Chicago compared to 5.607 million in Colorado. Chicago had a murder rate, per 100,000 people, that was 782% higher than Colorado: Chicago – 28 per 100k; Colorado – 3.6 per 100k. The per capita murder rate by gun is 26 per 100,000 in Chicago, and the statewide rate for Colorado is 2.43. That is a mind-boggling 1072% higher rate for Chicago.

According to this CBS article, the rate of gun ownership in Colorado is 34.3% versus a rate of 26.2% in Illinois. Even though Illinois as a whole has more guns, Colorado has a higher concentration of them (these numbers are only representative of lawful gun ownership).

Chicago blames their violence problem on out of state guns, which very well may be true. This, however, means that these guns were, likely, illegally obtained (shocker); likely through either straw purchasers, guns stolen from individuals, or sellers breaking the law by selling handguns to nonresidents. In each of these cases there are laws on the books that criminalize this activity. But again, criminals, definitionally, do not follow the law.

What does all of this mean? It means that Colorado has a higher per capita rate of gun ownership compared with Illinois, but has drastically lower gun homicide rate. It also means that guns are getting an unwarranted level of criticism. If guns really were the cause of the problem, a place like Texas, which is 18th in gun ownership rates, 24th in murder rate (bottom of page), and 2nd in population, should be one of the bloodiest places in the country; (35.7% X 27.9 million = 9.96 million gun owners in Texas). But it is not, in 2016 Texas had a total of 1,473 murders of which 74.2% were committed with some form of firearm; (.742)(1473) = 1093. That is 3.9 per 100k. Illinois is 5th in population, 38th in gun ownership rates, and 4th in murder rate in 2016.

These Folks Will Tell You Guns Are The Problem

Somehow, organizations like Everytown and Moms Demand Action convince their supporters that we need to enact more gun control laws; because this time it will work and that the right law will stop bad people from doing bad things. They fail to admit that evil cannot be legislated away. Also, I will link to it again, even Rahm Emanuel can admit that there is a lack of certain values present in these killers.

It is a lack of values, likely almost perfectly correlated to gang activity, that accounts for the overwhelming majority of gun related homicides in the country. Yet no one wants to talk about this fact. Law abiding gun owners are not the ones killing over 700 people in one city, but the majority of “common sense gun laws” only limit what law-abiding folks will do, and they may prevent someone, not prone to criminality, from breaking bad. Criminals, by definition, act regardless of the law. You only need to look so far as laws that make possession of drugs illegal and how many people are still arrested for possession to see how gun control laws will impact criminals getting guns.

The second amendment, as ruled in D.C. vs. Heller, protects and guarantees the right to bear arms for self-defense as an individual right, regardless of any affiliation with a militia. It is very likely that the aforementioned gun control advocacy groups will use Florida to push an agenda that will only harm the rights of lawful gun owners.

The shooting in Jacksonville, FL is another senseless, violent tragedy. Families have been torn apart for no reason. I write this with my son napping on my chest, and my heart breaks for the families of the victims.

If you can find a way to support the community, the wounded victims, or the families of the deceased you should. I also ask that if prayer is your thing, keep the victims and their families in your prayers.

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The mainstream media is heavily biased against the President and his supporters. This is a matter of fact. As you will read below, I have compiled a collection of articles that lay out not only how the media soft-balled the Obama Admin (and one part why they may have done so). I will also walk you through how the press deceives the population, how many times they have had to make a retraction in the first 18 months of Trump’s presidency, and finally I will show a few of the many examples of open contempt against the President and his supporters.

The Media: Obama vs. Trump

Many political commentators on the right will note that, as a whole, the media was comparatively gentle to President Obama and his administration. They are correct, source, so much so that long time Democratic thought leader, Bill Clinton admitted as much, and claimed that part of the reason could have been that President Obama was the first black man to be president, source.

60 Minutes

There was a time when 60 Minutes was considered hard-hitting journalism. They knocked themselves down a few pegs when, in early 2013, they aired the Steve Kroft interview of Obama and Clinton. Pundits excoriated it for being journalistic softball and asking zero questions of substance. It is especially obvious when you make the comparison, like the author does at the end of this piece, between the 2013 Kroft interview and the 2007 Scott Pelley interview of President Bush. It is, however, not as if there was nothing of substance to ask about during the 2013 interview.

As noted, here, the endorsements that many prominent media outlets published for Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign barely, if at all, offered anything other than unadulterated praise for the chosen one. Again, you can compare it to the scathing rebuke of President Bush in the 2008 election cycle endorsement of Obama, mentioned in the same article. It is also very easy to imagine that, in equally unflattering words as Bush received and much unlike the historical abridging for President Obama’s deficiencies, President Trump’s shortcomings will be elaborately spelled out in a screed wholly condemning him and endorsing anyone that is running against him, by these same outlets.

Reporting Disparities

In a final comparison of President Trump’s and President Obama’s media attention, I present this Pew Research study that outlines how the media treated each President in the first 60 days of their first term in office. The study found that only 5% of the coverage for President Trump, in the first 60 days, was positive. This is in contrast to over 40% for President Obama. There was also over 300% more negative coverage of President Trump than there was of President Obama. The study goes on to say that only 31% of the coverage of President Trump focused on his ideology and agenda, and a whopping 69% focused on his character and leadership, versus a 50/50 split in coverage for President Obama.

Deceptive Headlines

I am starting strong in this section with my first example how the media is twisting headlines to paint the narrative that they want. This is one of the most egregious examples of editorial malfeasance that I have personally seen, so let’s begin.

Local News

Recently, there was a story from a local NBC affiliate in Houston, TX., KPRC, that made my stomach drop just based on the headline. If true, things had actually gotten very bad in this country and things were likely going to get much worse. Below is a screenshot from the website on 8/16/18. Source

If you are like me, you read this and balked. Did he get arrested because of the sticker on his truck‽

No, he was not. He was, in fact, arrested because he had warrants for his arrest. He did not have a front license plate on his vehicle, as required by law in Texas, and he was pulled over. During the stop, the cop discovered warrants and arrested the driver. The facts of this story are extremely mundane; a guy has warrants for his arrest and guy is then arrested for those warrants. End of story.

I saw this on Facebook as I was scrolling down my feed and, like many, I just will skim a headline and determine if a story is worth reading or not. I actually read the story and condemned the editorial staff for such bush-league tactics of click-bait garbage reporting. This headline was (probably) intentionally worded to make it seem like this dude got arrested for his sticker and that his 1st Amendment rights were being infringed upon because, Trump. Often, people will see a provocative headline and just immediately spread misinformation because the headline was misleading.

Any news organization that allows this type of misleading headline for a story with such run-of-the-mill facts must be ridiculed and widely condemned for a lack of journalistic integrity.

Russia

Ever since Donald Trump surprised the world by, legitimately, winning the Presidency, there has been a concerted effort to confound the facts of the DNC/Podesta email hacking and the Russian social media efforts to foment division in the United States. The deliberate wording of headlines by many news media outlets was an effort to further sow division in the citizenry, and delegitimize President Trump as much as possible.

Let me show you:

To the best of my knowledge, there is a consensus that the Russians did not hack into voting machines in an effort to change votes. These headlines may make one think differently though. The media say”Russian Election Hacking” to make it seem to the Russians were able to hack into the voting machine servers (or whatever) and actually change the votes that were cast. This is a blatant effort to delegitimize his victory by making the electorate feel as if Russia stole their vote, and not to trust the results. Instead of saying that the Russians hacked the DNC/John Podesta and that they ran ads and stuff on Facebook, the media make it seem as if the actual outcome of the election has been altered.

Detention Center Death

In their eagerness to paint the President as some kind of monster that hates children (especially the immigrant ones), some media and the anti-Trump internet hate machine took a tweet about an unverified report of a child dying after leaving an ICE detention facility and ran with it. As reported here the lawyer originally stated that the child died in ICE custody, and then minutes later she deleted that tweet and stated that the child may have died while in ICE custody. HUGE difference. The record has been corrected though. This article does not accurately reflect the story and at first glance makes it seem like the child for sure died while in ICE custody. It is not until the last full paragraph that the author states:

While it is possible that this death may not be any fault of those running this particular ICE detention center, the very fact that these children are still locked up, away from their parents, and perhaps not getting the medical attention they deserve, is simply unacceptable to most Americans.

Instead of conveying this important fact at the end of the article, the author should have either noted the unconfirmed information earlier in the story, or should have used a different headline.

The Media’s Inaccurate Reporting

Reporters and journalist have always made mistakes when reporting the news. It seems now that news media outlets are having to walk back claims, about the President, with regularity. The first 18 months of President Trump’s tenure have been rife with inaccurate reporting. The never ending news cycle makes these outlets want to publish things as fast as possible, fact checking be dammed.

Brian Ross

ABC News Investigative Journalist Brian Ross reported in late 2017 that LtGen Flynn was instructed by candidate Trump to initiate contact with the Russians. This would be highly problematic for the president if it were true. It , however, was not true. As noted here, Ross was wrong, despite having claimed to verify the information. The erroneous reporting did have real world impact though. After Ross made the claim, and before it was corrected, the stock market tumbled, likely, causing some to lose money. Ross appeared on World News Tonight that night to set the record straight. Soon after, Ross was suspended without pay for 4 weeks, and ultimately ended up leaving the network this past summer. While I imagine there was no overt malice behind his actions, the excitement of having such damming news on the President, one which no one in the media seems to like, was sure to have lead to corners being cut before moving forward with the story.

Donald Trump Jr.

One week after the Brian Ross incident everyone’s favorite news outlet, CNN, made an equally egregious error when they report that Donald Trump Jr. had gotten information from Wikileaks, regarding the stolen emails, ten days before they were made public; Source. This would be severely damaging to the Trump presidency if it had been true. It would have been very strong evidence that something nefarious happened between the Trump Campaign and Wikileaks. Except, like the Brian Ross story, this one was also not true. CNN reported that the email was sent on September 4, 2016, and that the emails were made public on the 13th. But, as it turns out, the email was sent on September 14, 2016, a day after they were made public.

Earlier in the year, three CNN journalists resigned after inaccurate reports of financial ties between Trump officials and a Russian investment fund were published.

Over 50 Other Instances of Inaccurate Reporting

The Media’s Open Contempt for President Trump and His Supporters

The media and those on the left like to think of themselves as the most righteous of all. That they are the tolerant, good guys. Their tolerance ends the second there is any shred of disagreement with them, and it can manifest itself in a number of ways.

We Are Deplorables

Late in the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton called us “Deplorables.” Few have forgotten her words, but I imagine that many forgot how she was mostly given a pass by the media. In this article on Vox, the author more or less writes that Clinton was not wrong in her assertion. They even go so far as to say, “Whether the “deplorables” are really half of Trump’s current general election voters depends a bit on how you count, but it’s at least a plausible estimate.” So, there is that. President Trump got over 60 million votes in the election, so using Clinton’s estimate, this author is saying about 30 million people are deplorable people.

These same people do not understand how Donald Trump was elected.

We’re All Toothless White Trash

Recently, the President had a rally in Tamp, FL., you know, the one where Jim Acosta was heckled and the media flipped out over that. There was a reporter for Politicothat tweeted, “If you put everyone’s mouths together in this video, you’d get a full set of teeth.” The video was showing a clip of the people heckling Acosta. Eventually he clarified that he was only talking about folks in the clip, and not necessarily the President’s supporters generally.

These same people do not understand how Donald Trump was elected.

Our Elevator Does Not Reach the Top Floor

CNN is trash and Jim Acosta is trash as well. Recently, Acosta made headlines because he claimed that Trump supporters’ elevators might not hit all the floors and and that we do not have all of our facilities. According to this CNN article, we are all misunderstanding what Acosta said. I have read it more than a few times trying to find the best possible read of his statements. It very much seems like he is referring to us Toothless Deplorables.

Jim Acosta, CNN, and the rest of the media do not understand how Donald Trump was elected President.

· · ·

I do not pretend that an outlet like Fox is not slanted in favor of the President, and Republicans more generally. Fox, however, is more or less the only mainstream outlet without a left bias to it. Whereas ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and any “smaller” outlets (like MSNBC) all have a very strong and obvious bias to the left. The number of outlets that are not Fox News ensures that the left’s message will be the loudest and most widely disseminated.

Despite everything noted above, the media will loudly proclaim their objectivity. Do not believe them, they are liars. Their lies allow hacks like Jim Acosta to play the victim, and they use his “victim hood” to ratchet up the anti-right wing/Republican/Conservative/Trump animosity on the left.

Note, the majority of this was written a couple of weeks prior to finally being posted. The Media turned the dial up to 11 with their coverage of the Manafort/Cohen conviction/plea deal. Things are crazy, and the media is still against you.

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Another weekend has come and gone in the Windy City, so you know what that means? Yep, a boatload of people got shot in a city with some of the strictest gun laws in the county. Chicago is proof of why gun rights advocates look so scornfully upon gun control advocates. Chicago epitomizes the failures of gun control.

However, I have to give credit where credit is due; Mayor Emanuel said, “There are values. There are too many guns on the street, too many people with criminal records on the street, and there is a shortage of values about what is right and what is wrong.” [Emphasis mine.]

He is completely right about it being a values problem. I, and an overwhelming majority of gun rights advocates, could not agree with you more, Mr. Mayor; it is a values problem. Sadly, you are unwilling to make a distinction between the valueless monsters that roam your streets, and the millions of gun owners that you and your gun control cronies love to chastise.

In the sheep, sheepdog, and wolf metaphor, these valueless people are wolves. They are preying on the sheep and even other wolves (when they can). There are no more sheepdogs because of your failed gun control policies. The wolves run amok in your city.

Mayor Emanuel, I agree that there is a values problem. I believe you could empower the sheepdogs of Chicago. But, sadly, it is also the values of people like you that are standing in the way of change. Gun control advocates, like yourself, stand on the graves of gun violence victims when they call for more gun control laws that would have done nothing to prevent the deaths they are addressing.

You are a corrupt mayor whose own police force believes you do not have their best interest at heart, just your own political well-being. You further prove their point when you double down on more gun control as a solution to the violence. Instead of making politically risky decisions about how to solve the violence problem in your city, you again put your own political interests up front. You see no other options than more gun control, and scoring points with the gun control “progressives” you rely on by doing so. Chicago is what happens when you take away the sheepdogs, and any respectable shepherd understands how invaluable sheepdogs are to their herd.

I hope that eventually advocates of gun control such as yourself will wise up to the failures of your policies. You and your ilk have some of the victims’ blood on your hands.

This is my second time mentioning Chicago because of weekends like this past one, first one here. Over 120 people got shot across these two weekends. If this trend continues my commentary will become a regular series on the failures of gun control.

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For all intents and purposes, civil discourse is not possible in today’s hyper-polarized, politically correct climate. So much so that the Intellectual Dark Web is a thing. For those unaware, let Dave Rubin, a member of the IDW, explain it for you HERE.

I think we are in a sad state because something like the IDW is a thing that exists. What is even more sad is that the existence of this group is considered controversial, and the topics they speak on are considered taboo. By shutting down and shutting out discussions on topics that are difficult to speak on, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face (cutting out our tongue may be a more apt comparison though). The safe space, trigger warning, and “anyone that I disagree with is a racist” mentality is handicapping our ability to work with those we disagree with in any kind of meaningful way.

I recently had the displeasure of having someone levy a personal attack against me because we disagreed. It all started when my sister’s boyfriend, Travis, made a post on Facebook about the USAG, Jeff Sessions, patronizing a local Mexican restaurant in Houston, TX. The owner and chef posted a picture with Sessions to social media. This was a horrible, no good, very bad sin of the highest order that the owner committed. People were incensed and the internet hate machine roared into action. It was the typical leftist circle-jerk of who can virtue signal their way up the “wokeness” hierarchy the fastest. I guess being the USAG and not supporting illegal immigration makes you incapable of enjoying Mexican/Tex-Mex food.

One of the comments on his post claimed, as a fact, that Sessions is a white supremacist. I guess my curiosity got the best of me and I asked for information that lead her to the conclusion. She offered up a couple of links, neither of which made a statement of fact; one was the worst case interpretation of his statement, “The office of Sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement…”. Even left leaning, fact checking site, Snopes says this:

While we are unable to ascertain Sessions’s motives for the change he made to his prepared speech (there were many other places he diverged, as well), we can say that it is factual that Sessions made the statement that “the office of Sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement” and that “Anglo-American” is a way to reference to the common law legal heritage the United States sheriff’s system shares with Europe.

Snopes admits that Sessions’ claim is factual and make no attempt to attribute intent to what he said. Source

Her other source for her claim was a story referencing a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King, admonishing Sessions, and saying that he should not be confirmed for a federal judgeship. He ultimately was not confirmed to the court. This letter by King may or may not be based in fact against Sessions, I have not looked into it. However, her using the opinion of someone else to make a factual claim is not an argument in good faith, and offers no statement of fact to support her claim. I responded by saying that she should do better to support her claims that he is, in fact, a white supremacist. After saying my piece about her evidence, she implied that I am defending Sessions because I too am a racist, and instructed Travis to, “come get your family.” Travis responded by claiming that, “sadly he is unwrangleable.” Which lead me to reply in saying that he is not and hopefully will not be a family to me. Screen shots of the exchange will be shown below.

All of this is relevant because it predicates what came next.

Travis and my sister have been together just over two years, I believe, and both are in their mid 30s. To say I never liked him would be a gross understatement. He has shown himself to be as intolerant as any archetypal leftist you can find; he operates from a place of hostile emotion, and believes that if you bring facts or a different opinion to a discussion with him you are a hostile, hateful person.

Travis and I have gone back and forth many times and on many different subjects; we have agreed on maybe 1. Our last interactions, I felt, left us in a place where we would try and be more mindful of the other’s position and give the benefit of the doubt when we disagreed.

This online exchange was far from the end of it, and Travis, the perpetual victim, then crossed a line.

First some more context: He is included in a group text message between my parents, me, my wife, and my 3 sisters. We had been chatting because my mom went to urgent care because she sliced open her toe and needed stitches.

He used that group chat to actually tattle on me to my family because I was “mean to him” (after he said I was “unwrangleable”) then claimed he had no idea why I became overtly hostile to him. He twisted things to make it seem like I brought hostility to the group chat. I snapped. I decided I would meet him at his level and finish what he started.

Travis then used his Facebook to do a number of things: make a public, personal attack on me; tagged my 3 sisters, my wife, and a distant relative that I thought was friendly with me, in order to get them to condemn me and support him; claimed, and not for the first time, that I am a hateful person; finally, framed his post to make it seem like I was the one that went after him initially.

Before we go further, can I just comment on how idiotic he is to think that my wife, of all people, would side with him instead of me? Does he not understand that we chose each other, have a very similar world-views, agree that he is an intolerant manipulator, and put the best interests of our family unit above the feelings of someone like him?

There has been no further discussion in my family’s group text so I do not currently know where things stand. I regret nothing and meant everything everything that I said. I have attached relevant screenshots to see the progression of the conversations.

Why is this relevant? Because this is a microcosm of the state of discourse in the country now. Instead of agreeing to disagree people resort to personal character attacks to shame others into silence. I can only speak for myself, but any comments that I made on his post did not come from a place of hatred or intolerance. I want people to be better with forming opinions based on fact, not conjecture. Instead of mollifying his friend and claiming me to be unwrangleable, he could have chosen to give my opinions space without having to agree with me at all. Personal character attacks to someone’s family because you disagree with them is a low, immature tactic.

The IDW, thankfully, exists despite people like Travis who would like to see any differing opinion silenced. I hope that as a society we can overcome this tribal, intersectional disaster we have gotten ourselves into; if we are unable to the future is a nasty place.

Conservatives, Republicans, and anyone that is not a Democrat, Leftist, or self avowed SJW are often maligned by Democrats, Leftists, or self avowed SJWs as being racist. Recently, and associated with the #WalkAway movement, I have seen posts from Blacks that are sharing the backlash they have experienced from the Left for not siding with the Left. The people that are supposed to be the tolerant ones are the ones castigating these man and women because they dare to think freely. And, contrary to what the leftist institutions would like you to believe, are being welcomed by the Right.

Posts like this are what I am talking about. I have not verified this man’s statement. His, though, is one of the many I have seen lately. I take his statement at face value, in large part, because of the firestorm that Kanye West stirred up by simply saying he does not hate the President. For a statement as completely harmless as this, the internet hate machine revved into high gear and did everything they could to trash and discredit him. The most disgusting attacks on Kanye came from those that accused him of being mentally unstable for making such a comment. A family member of mine made this comment to me when I asked for their opinion about the Kanye situation. I was both surprised and not surprised by their claim that he needed mental health care. If people are unable to have independent thought, as Kanye said, without being labeled as mentally defective we have reached a new low as a society. Also, does that mean that anyone who is not on the Left is mentally defective as well, or is it just Kanye because, you know, he is black and blacks are only supposed to be staunchly democrat?

The New York Times found themselves in hot water this past week via their newest editorial board hire, Sarah Jeong. Way back in 2014 she sent some racist tweets directed at white people; SOURCE and Jeong Tweets. So, what did the NYT do? If you guessed that they fired her, you would be wrong. Instead, they defended their choice to hire her. Which, as a business, is their prerogative. This, however, reeks of hypocrisy and exposes the double standard of the left.

To begin, there is THIS article from February regarding the hiring and very prompt firing of writer Quinn Norton by the NY Times. After hiring Norton the armchair detectives of Twitter took swift action in digging up old dirt on her. In the span of probably 16 hours she went from the newest hire of the NYT to the newest victim of the internet hate mob. She was guilty of saying hateful things and using derogatory words towards various groups. Also, she was friends with someone that became a Neo Nazi or something. It was totally within the purview of the NYT to give Norton the boot. However, fast forward to last week and the same NYT is defending their hiring of Sarah Jeong. Norton and Jeong Tweets

Next up is the statement that the NYT released after the furor over Jeong’s tweets, Here. It is such a toothless admonishment that they probably should not have released a statement at all. Joy Pullman with The Federalist wrote a damning piece, HERE, discussing that the statements from the NYT and Jeong, separately, are disconcertingly similar to the defense that the Alt-Right has used for their racism. The NYT and Jeong use the Alt-Right claim that her racism is satirical, counter trolling, and that she was “imitating the rhetoric” of those making racist remarks towards her. Pullman also explicates how anti-everything-Alt-Right the NYT is, or claims to be, while at the same time using their very defense in favor of Jeong.

There is one glaring differences between the Norton and the Jeong cases:

1. Norton is White, and Jeong is not.

You may be wondering, “So what, racism is racism, right?” You are wrong, again.

Racism, at least for the Left, has been redefined. Racism is now prejudice plus power (Source). More or less meaning that only whites can be racist and never be the victims of racism. This does not actually jive with the dictionary definition of racism; which does not necessitate elements of Marx’s social conflict theory in order for something or someone to be racist.

By firing Norton and retaining Jeong the NYT has expressly shown that they accept and are likely to promulgate this intersectional, Marxist based redefinition of racism.

Like this:

Gun control advocates are hypocrites of the highest degree. Whenever there is a large, highly publicized tragedy involving gun violence, their pants collectively get tighter. They think that now is their time, and this time will be different; those ass backwards people that cling to their God and their guns will finally see things their way. The RIGHT way, the way of virtue, and moral clarity. The common sense way!

They present their ideas as fresh, “I cannot believe we did not think of this before!”, kind of ideas.

They fail to realize is that nobody likes gun violence. Even people in gangs, the very people that are the cause of and victims of most gun violence, think that gun violence sucks. Their buddy gets killed and they get all pissed and go kill others. There may be like 37 people in the United States that likes gun violence.

The loathsome idols of the gun grabber’s focus are the guns that look super scary. You know, the kind with the shoulder thing that goes up, video link, or those damned fully-semi-automatic ones.

When the talking heads make statements like the ones above, 99.9% of gun owner’s eyes nearly roll right out their head. The talking heads think they are using the jargon properly, but they are actually making that 99.9% dig in their heels more. They are showing the law abiding gun owner that they have no clue what they are talking about. They then expect the law abiding gun owner to be comfortable with their doltish selves making the laws and policies. Then they wonder why there is such fervent pushback.

There will be no CNN town hall, there will be no protests led by the abhorrent David Hogg, and the overall coverage will surely be overshadowed by some porn star and her unethical lawyer (or something as equally trite).

“Why?” you may ask. Great question; it is because no one cares about the gang member that gets killed in some hood somewhere. Even though this type of violence makes up the majority of gun violence, no seems to bat an eye. Instead the focus is on the one-off incidents and the tragedies that have happened recently.

The Joker from The Dark Knight is very pertinent here.

Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that like a gang banger, will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all, part of the plan. But when I say that one, little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

He is, for all intents and purposes, correct. He knows no one cares if a bunch of gang members die. It’s baked in to being a gang member, but it is still a massive problem. A problem that should be the focus of the left’s ire, not me or my guns, or anyone else who only wishes to preserve their own safety within the convoluted and often hard to/impossible to enforce legal donkey show constructs that gun laws are becoming. If the gun grabbing do-gooders want to make a meaningful change they would focus their attention on the gang violence that engulfs urban America. That is where there is ground to be made. Not by micromanaging the law abiding gun owner by telling them that an 11 round magazine is a crime, but 10 is ok. That’s really (not) going to have an impact on the criminals that commit the majority of gun violence in the country. Criminals do not follow laws, hence the existence of the criminal.

Most gun control advocates, I think, are not looking for, or even expecting, their proposals to pass. They are looking for a cudgel to use against those that disagree with them in order virtue signal about how refined, civilized, and much of an intellectual they are. When the proposals they make are actually ones based in “common sense” and focus on the majority of gun violence in the country I may change my tune in that.

I think that the idea of white privilege is stupid, but this is a fun counterargument to make against those that want gun control and decry white privilege.

Like this:

I want to preempt any post that I make about racism by stating my beliefs here:

It is evil. Full stop.

We should ostracize and condemn racists for their beliefs. Full stop.

Unprovoked violence against racists makes you, at best, no better a person than they are.

Irrefutable evidence is necessary to back up accusations of being racist; not evidence that is circumstantial, out of context, or “dog whistle” in nature.

There is no such thing as “reverse racism.” It is all just racism.

It does not require the undertones of Marx’s Conflict Theory, or “power imbalances.” Any attempt to steer away from the dictionary definition of racism is an attempt for the that person to excuse their own behavior.

Anyone, no matter their own race, is capable of being racist. It is not exclusive to white people. If you feel otherwise it is because you are attempting to excuse your own behavior

I may update this from time to time as the need arises and I welcome open discussion about this topic. Limits on what is and is not acceptable to discuss are totalitarian and un-American.

It is common to hear that the United States is a Democracy; while we have enshrined elements of the Democracy in our Constitution, we are not a Democracy and that is a very good thing. The Framers designed a Federal Republic in order to protect the individual from the government as well as the unchecked majority that exists in a pure Democracy. In a pure democracy majority rules and there is little to protect the individual; the end. A democracy, in its most simple form, takes only a simple majority opinion to make the rules, and fully subjugate the minority opinion to their will regardless of what it may be. As stated HERE:

[A Democracy is] Rule by the omnipotent majority. In a democracy, an individual, and any group of individuals composing any minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of the majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man.

Whereas,

A republic is similar to a representative democracy except it has a written constitution of basic rights that protect the minority from being completely unrepresented or overridden by the majority.

These are extremely important differences between the two systems of government, and it is irresponsible to be unaware of the differences. There is a very good video here, The American Form of Government. This not only explains why the United States is a Republic instead of a Democracy. It also delves into the other forms of government that exist, and rethinks the classifications of common forms of government.

I cringe when I hear politicians make comments about “our democracy” or something similar. It shows either ignorance, stupidity, or laziness. I imagine that the majority of people in the United States are unaware of the actual type of government under which they live.